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Last weekend I covered Peter Tatchell’s shameful and self-promoting ‘protest’ during Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at an event against violence toward women and observed that Corbyn is the least logical target for a genuine protest, given his record of support for oppressed Arabs and steadfastness against bombing Syrians.

Of course, the emphasis has to be on genuine protest. If you have another agenda, it could make perfect sense.

In that article, I also observed the resemblance between Tatchell’s misdirected action and a similar attempt to damage him that took place during a Pride event earlier this year, when a heckler, who just happened to work for Blairite-run PR firm Portland, shouted at him and made sure that day’s news was all about the heckler and not about Corbyn’s speech.

It turns out that the campaign group that was Tatchell’s vehicle for his protest, Syria Solidarity UK (SSU), has a close relationship with Labour Campaign for International Development (LCID), as this recent LCID email shows:

If your antennae are twitching at the highlighted name of Alison McGovern, that ‘s probably because she’s Chair of arch-Blairite group Progress as well as a VP of LCID. Every page of LCID’s website currently features this animated New Labour horror show:

LCID’s co-Presidents are prominent Progress members, as is Ms McGovern and many of its other vice-Presidents.

And one is an MP who infamously co-ordinated his ‘live on air’ resignation with the BBC’s senior political ‘journalist’ Laura Kuenssberg, for maximum impact on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party.

Now of course, none of this is definitive proof of anything. But is it stretching the limits of imagination to picture a cosy fireside chat between someone at SSU and one or more of LCID‘s Progress members about how convenient it would be if someone just happened to pop up holding a few banners at a key Corbyn speech that would otherwise be sure to get some positive media coverage?

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